Alison is a creative, tech-loving talent scout who believes that students should pursue internships to learn about the animation industry and get their foot in the door. Although her main focus is artistic talent acquisitions as a recruiter, she is passionate about guiding students and professionals to become more presentable and better-equipped for the creative job market.

Jill Gilbert is the Head of Animated Content at Luma, where she plays an instrumental role in transitioning the company from its core business as a VFX/animation vendor to a content creation studio. Since joining Luma in 2016, she has built a slate of projects consisting of original animated feature films and animated short form content. The first animated feature film is slated for pre-production in 2018.

Prior to joining Luma, Gilbert was Executive Producer and Managing Director for Psyop, an innovative animation studio in the advertising and branding industry for the last 16 years, working with such clients as Coke, Nike, Samsung, AMC and Super Cell. She launched an IP initiative for the company and oversaw the development and production for original content. From late 2011 until early 2014, Gilbert was Vice President of Production for the newly launched feature animation division at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood. In this role, she successfully launched Paramount Animation’s first film, SpongeBob SquarePants in 3D into production and oversaw all creative and production‐related aspects of the movie, which was released in February 2015.

Nicole Hendrix is a four-time Emmy winning Producer and has won five PromaxBDA GOLD awards as a Producer and Creative Director. With a multi-disciplinary background Nicole has used storytelling as the main ingredient in her successful campaigns that span across television, games and film. She is currently working as a Marketing + PR Consultant for Page82 where her clients include Ryan Meinerding, CG Futures, Gnomon, and more, while also taking freelance Producing gigs. In addition to working a graphic novel with her husband, Josh Herman, Nicole has created documentaries that cover everything from natural disasters to activism, and is currently producing a mini-doc series on disaster preparedness for Red Cross LA.

In her spare time, Nicole devotes her energy to gender issues, and helping women at risk. She serves as a volunteer crisis counselor advocate for Peace Over Violence and helps women in the industry as a mentor and lecturer. She has most recently guest lectured at the University of Connecticut on Creativity and Gender, and is currently working on a study tracking Gender and Award Acceptance Speeches with Creativity Researcher, Dr. James Kaufman.

Create-a-thon Coaches

BRIC’s Create-a-thons partner students with industry experts and allow them to get hands-on experience and guidance in a fun, creative, work-focused environment. We are always looking for more mentors, so please contact us at thebricfoundation@gmail.com if you’re interested in joining us.